A Jewish take on American history

Rabbi Mark Wm. Gross

Presidents Day, on the third Monday of this month, honors our first and 16th chief executives by splitting the difference between their respective birthdays: Lincoln’s on Feb. 12 (1809) and Washington’s on Feb. 22 (1732). Beyond their self-evident importance as influential forces in our nation’s history — Washington established the Union, and Lincoln preserved it — both men have particular significance for us Jews.

After the victory at Yorktown secured our independence, the nature of the young United States was so ill-defined that German was just one vote shy from becoming our national language, and there was energetic discussion behind the establishment of an official state sponsored religion (as a counterpart to The Church of England). This is where our first president weighed in, lending his rock-star prestige to promote the same freedom for individuals that the army he had led earned for the nation as a whole.

In what constituted a major media event at the time, in the Summer of 1790, Washington attended Shabbat worship at the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island — at that time, the largest and most conspicuous non-Christian house of worship in the young United States. Standing on the bimah to address the assemblage (and the attentive representatives of the press), our first president repudiated the idea of an established state religion by affirming that in our new nation “all possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.”

Washington lent his endorsement and protection to American Jews by the earnest aspiration that “the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants.” And he emphasized to the worshippers — all of them refugees from the inquisition — that the government of this nation “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

Although the U.S. population surged during the first half of the 19th century, we Jews remained the tiniest fraction of the whole, consistently representing an estimated .05% of Americans from 1776 to 1860. So, when the Civil War broke out in spring of 1861, scant attention was paid to the minute Jewish community — except by a president who was uniquely positioned to understand and support us in spite of our few numbers.

When the Civil War broke out …scant attention was paid to the minute Jewish community—except by a president who was uniquely positioned to understand and support us in spite of our few numbers.

Raised by Calvinist parents with strong Puritan roots, Abraham Lincoln was a dedicated Bible reader who regarded Hebrew scripture to be as important as the Christian gospels. Personally acquainted with a goodly cross-section of the three thousand “Hebrews” living in Illinois, he was a working partner with fellow Congressman Isaac Arnold; an advocate for Chicago synagogue president Abraham Kohn; and an intimate lifelong friend of Springfield dry-goods dealer Julius Hammerslough.

Thus in 1861, when The Board of Delegates of American Israelites sent Arnold Fischel to protest the War Department’s definition of military chaplains as “a regularly ordained minister of some Christian denomination,” Lincoln not only warmly welcomed the rabbi but assured him of personal action “to cover what is desired by you on behalf of the Israelites.” And when General Grant in 1862 issued a summary edict of expulsion for every Jew in Kentucky and Tennessee, a delegation of Jewish merchants from Paducah was given a ready access to the Oval Office by a president who provided them a ready welcome as friends, assuring them they would have “at once the protection they sought in Father Abraham’s bosom.”

Thomas Berger once wrote that America is less a place than an idea. As such, the idea that everyone in our Republic is valued and respected may have been defined in our Constitution, but it was actualized by the two presidents we honor this Feb. 17.

Rabbi Mark Wm. Gross serves at Jewish Congregation of Marco Island.